Late night topwater action in the harbour

[devoker]

I was at a wharf last night to chase tailors, hoping they would be hunting as the area is decently lit and moon was up. I started by casting metals, had no bites for a while even though I saw a big splash near the surface (didn't look like mullet as nothing jumped but I only saw the splash). I casted around the action a few times but no fish seemed to interested in. After trying for an hour I decided to switch to vibes to try flathead or snapper. I casted everywhere for 180 degrees radius yet didn't get single bites.

After like 30 mins of trying, I heard small splashes behind me right next to the wharf. First I thought they were bream and dropped a crab style lure. When I was watching the lure drop I saw the fish swimming fastly around it, and I noticed they were tailor not bream. I swtiched back to the vibes and landed a 23 cm tailor. After seeing them feeding near surface, swtiched to topwater lures even though it was quite deep. First, I used a walk the dog type lure and in a few minutes I was getting bites. After a few casts, I landed another tailor at the same size. Fish seemed to have lost interest in the lure, so I switched to a bent minnow. I tried for a while but there was no bite. The next lure I went with was a 65 mm jerkbait, and after casting a few times, the third tailor came (again 23 cm). I had to retie my leader again because it was quite chafed. The feeding frenzy was not ending anytime soon. After that I caught another (same size once again ) with the jerkbait, but this time my leader and the braid was tangled so much while I was trying to unhook the fish that I had to cut my leader completely. It was getting very late (around 11pm), so I decided to call it even though I would have loved to catch a few more of them.

[lhan]

a lot of 23s! well done catching them using all kinds of methods @devoker.

Since I started fishing topwater I kinda shifted my attitude towards tailor - they're aggressive and fun little fish with no fear splash your lure, unlike bream just schooling underneath and staring at it for 10s then turned away.

[Little_Flatty]

Interesting how they are often so homogeneous in size, isn’t it?

Glad you had fun. They are quite savage with topwaters.

[devoker]

5 hours ago, Little_Flatty said:

Interesting how they are often so homogeneous in size, isn’t it?

Glad you had fun. They are quite savage with topwaters.

I knew that similar size fish form schools but they were almost identical. Some were tiny bit thicker or slimmer but all around 22-23 cm range.

[dirvin21]

6 hours ago, lhan said:

a lot of 23s! well done catching them using all kinds of methods @devoker.

Since I started fishing topwater I kinda shifted my attitude towards tailor - they're aggressive and fun little fish with no fear splash your lure, unlike bream just schooling underneath and staring at it for 10s then turned away.

Once you start catching bream on topwater you'll never be the same

 

[devoker]

12 hours ago, dirvin21 said:

Once you start catching bream on topwater you'll never be the same

 

Coincidentally, I caught my first bream this morning (not on topwater though, using sp). I usually cast perpendicular to the shore, but this time tried casting along the edge and in the second cast near a drain pipe I hooked a bream.

Also a small flattie with grubs, and a small tailor with topwater lure.